Things began with a preview of the next episode, which starts where the last left off: With Cobblepot showing up at Barbara’s apartment, much to a shocked Gordon’s dismay. “You must be Barbara,” he says. “Hello, James old friend.” He explains that he’s an old friend, and quickly ingratiates himself with Barbara in that creepy, Penguin way. And Gordon goes along with the lie… “He’s a work friend.” Cut to the alleyway outside, and Gordon has Cobblepot up against a wall. “I told you never come back here. Falcone will kill us both! I should kill you.” But you won’t, says Cobblepot, because you’re a good man and nobody else trusts you but me. “I can be your secret agent,” he tells Gordon. “There’s a war coming!” But what war, Gordon asks? Cobblepot implies that it all leads to Arkham…

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“Obviously Jim has been lying to everyone, including his partner, Carmine Falcone, Fish Mooney,” said McKenzie. “And those walls will keep tightening around him. One of the interesting things is that the pilot starts off with Gordon doing the morally correct thing, not killing Cobblepot, but in Gotham the morally correct thing is not always the right thing. He effectively created the Penguin [by doing that]. … I think he’s feeling surrounded, because he is surrounded by people like Oswald as well as people who aren’t on the same mission, which is where Harvey [Bullock] starts off. … But he will never give in to hopelessness.”

Another part of that opening scene for the next episode involved a mysterious man approaching a politician. “I’m one of your constituents,” he says as he begins to fiddle with a metallic tube in his hands. “I want to show you something.” The thing looks like a periscope, and he tells the politician’s assistant to look in the end of it… which of course takes the guy’s eye out and kills him. The man pursues the fleeing politician, cornering him and raising the device again, saying, “Honestly sir, I really did vote for you…” And then KLANG!

Regarding who this new threat might be, Cannon would only say, “When the lunatics run the asylum, the strongest lunatic will win.” It’s such a corrupt town, he added, and the villains that will emerge will always surprise us.

Speaking of villains, the topic of upcoming villains did come up and while the executive producer was pretty tightlipped, he did say he’s focusing on Victor Zsasz and Harvey Dent for now, who are both coming to the show. But when a fan asked about whether or not we’ll see Harley Quinn eventually, Cannon dodged the question at first but finally said, “We’ll get there.”

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The Court of Owls also came up: “We are sneaking in a few things in Season 1,” Cannon confirmed. “And if FOX lets us have a Season 2, there’s no end to what you will see from them.”

And then there’s that comedian that we saw in Fish Mooney’s club. Is that the Killing Joke Joker before his transformation, a fan asked? “I don’t know!” laughed Cannon. But he did hint that “we’re going way, way back” with him and “I don’t think he’d be telling jokes yet.” Hmmmm…

Cannon also said that setting the show in Batman’s past was a luxury, and something that not many people had done before to this degree. “We had to make Gotham our own,” he said. “That’s the only way you can be true to the material. But we were influenced by everything that had come before.”

That applies to characters like Gordon and Bullock of course, who have been portrayed not just on the page but also on screen and in animation before. For Logue, he did know his character from Batman: The Animated Series, since his kids would watch it all the time.

“I think that he’s been around for a while and became very cynical,” he said of his take on the detective. “When we meet him he just wants to stuff his pockets and get to the finish line.” He’s seen a hundred Gordons come and go, he added, but his new partner is so strong that it will take someone like that to reawaken his good side.

As for Taylor, who by the way the Comic-Con crowd loved and cheered, he said that while Cobblepot doesn’t really have any superpowers, he does see the character as having a very unique talent. “Even though there is no real supernatural element to this world,” he said. “I think if he did have a superpower, it would be the fact that he can endear himself to people and then play people off of people and emerge triumphant above them all.”

Pertwee will be offering up a more modern interpretation of the loyal butler Alfred, one that apparently is a “bada$$” (those are Cannon’s words). It also sounds like he will be giving young Bruce some of his earliest fight training… but that doesn’t mean Alfred knows much about how to actually raise the kid.

“Because he is a valet and the protector of Bruce doesn’t mean he has any particularly wonderful parenting skills, as you can see,” said Pertwee. “And they get worse. So for me as an actor, it was basically about trying to find a hook, a way to communicate with this young man.”

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Richards, who will eventually be Mrs. Gordon according to Batman history (and mother of Batgirl!), said that she sees her and Gordon’s dynamic as being based in the real world despite the fantastic setting of the show.

“With her relationship with Jim she obviously loves him so much and she really wants it to work, but she can already sense that something’s not right,” she said. “And it’s really painful for her. … She’s just going through normal relationship stuff, except everything is heightened because they’re in Gotham.”

A fan asked who everyone’s favorite superhero was growing up, and while there were lots of Batmans, a Green Lantern and a Spider-Man, the best had to be Taylor’s: